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students must be addressed, and students must be treated with equal respect and regard. Therefore, activities have to enhance the learning of all students, including the gifted students.

So, while in theory this creates a situation that avoids creating interpersonal problems, feelings of failure, or other unintended negative outcomes, the reality doesn't always flow as smoothly. There are several common beliefs about peer teaching experiences in the classroom, but depending on how each tutoring experience is designed and monitored, there can be pros and cons for gifted students.

BELIEF: Peer tutoring can help students develop compassion for others.

PRO: provides an opportunity to learn patience and develop skills for sensitive and compassionate communication. Kids live in a swiftly moving world of video games and instant messaging, and often gifted children's minds are traveling a million miles a minute. When a gifted student has to take the time to consider how someone else is thinking through a problem, they have the opportunity to learn patience. Also, gifted children quickly learn that there are nice ways to tell someone their answer isn't right, and there are not-so-nice ways.

CON: sometimes students aren't ready to learn patience. If a bad peer-tutoring group is created by the teacher, things can quickly go sour. Teachers must gauge their students levels of sensitivity and capacities for learning emotional-intelligence skills before being paired together. Without careful planning and peer-tutor training, this is the kind of situation that can lead to awkward peer relationships, teasing, or becoming socially ostracized.

BELIEF: Peer-tutoring can provide opportunities for students to develop their own teaching skills.

PRO: provides a new way to engage academically and problem solve. In the right tutoring situation, gifted children are given an opportunity to think about their knowledge in a new way: they have to explain it to someone else. Children can use multiple approaches to try to reach their peers and find a "better" way to explain skills, concepts, and interconnected facts.

CON: if a task isn't engaging, the situation can become a burden and cause negative feelings about school. Gifted children can sense when they are doing a valuable job, and when they are being given busy work. Peer-tutoring goals need to have creative, intellectual, or other perceived value. If a gifted child is simply going over memorizable information, she will not feel valued, and

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